


it'll take a lot more than that (to get rid of me)

by enjolrolo



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Concussions, Drift Bond, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Hospitals, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Mako Mori Lives, Mako Mori-centric, Post-Canon, Reunions, i love her and she's fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 05:58:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15136631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enjolrolo/pseuds/enjolrolo
Summary: Mako Mori doesn't die.What happens, instead, is this.





	it'll take a lot more than that (to get rid of me)

**Author's Note:**

> here i am finally in 2018 writing pacrim fanfic. i saw pacrim 2 and got angry and feverishly wrote this at like 1am and forgot abt it until now. this is for all the gays out there . i love u almost as much as i love mako mori

Mako sees her pilot frantically search for anything to slow the helicopter’s descent.

Mako sees Jake’s jaeger lunging for her helicopter.

Mako sees straight into Jake’s brain and she knows that he’s too panicked to think about the device in the jaeger’s hand that can draw objects closer to itself, so, as the jaeger’s hand clips the side of the copter and fails to grab it, she acts on her own.

The helicopter makes a sharp spin, and she kicks her shoes off so she can get her footing. The clothing that she’s expected to wear for diplomatic ventures isn’t going to help her, but there’s no time to worry about that now.

Raleigh had laughed as she grumblingly bought the two-hundred-dollar heels, teasing her about conforming to government ideologies. She sees the same shoes disappear across the floor of the cabin and feels nothing except the panic in her chest. She breathes instead of succumbing to it. Panic will do nothing for her right now.

Mako doesn’t have time to get up to the cockpit and save her pilot, and she prays that he’s acted on his own. Her hands are steady on her tablet as she transmits the location of the Siberian production plant to the PPDC--it’s the least she can do, to give them something to work on for a while--and she unbuckles her restraints.

The helicopter lurches again, settling into a tight downwards spiral that’s only going to last a few seconds. In the movement, she’s thrown from her seat, her tablet slams into her mouth before flying out of reach, and she thinks she tastes blood. The least of her problems, honestly.

She realizes two things; first, she’s left her parachute somewhere under the seat (not that it would be any help at such a short distance to the ground); second, she has less than thirty seconds to impact and there’s no way she’s going to open the emergency exit in time.

An emergency radio call fills the intercom, at least two or three people shouting, asking for someone to confirm any status. With another lurch, she’s pinned to the ceiling with inertia, and she sees the cockpit. Mako’s blood runs cold. Her pilot is dead, head leaking red across the controls and broken glass from the windshield littering his shoulders and back.

“General Mori, can you make an emergency landing?” a frantic voice asks over the intercom. It’s Tendo. “We can’t get a read on the engine.”

She tears her eyes away from her pilot and braces herself on the side of the copter.

“The engine is out,” she shouts. The window across the cabin is cracked already, and she aims herself towards it.

Outside, the ground is approaching fast. The tail of the copter catches the side of a building and Mako is almost jarred from her perch on the wall.

“Can you get to your parachute?” Tendo asks, his voice distorted and barely audible through the buzzing filling Mako’s ears.

She doesn’t dignify that with a response, because she knows Tendo isn’t expecting one. He’ll appreciate her getting out of this alive more than he’ll appreciate a status update. She throws an arm over her face to protect herself, and kicks off as hard as she can.

There’s a sweeping fear in her stomach that she’s too late--but she can’t look up to see if she’s going to make it, because she can’t go through the side of a helicopter face-first--and then she makes impact with the window.

 

Mako doesn’t die. She briefly _thinks_ that she’s dead, when she opens the eye that isn’t swollen shut and feels bright light cutting into it, too bright to seem earthly.

The chalky dust in the air makes her cough, which in turn causes more pain as broken ribs shriek against each other in her abdomen. As she rolls onto her side and coughs again, Mako feels a sticky, warm, wet on her face that means she’s bleeding. A weird buzzy feeling is filling her arm, and when she looks at it, the elbow is pointing the wrong way.

She’s alive, though. Which is saying something.

Laying there, in the middle of a rubble-strewn street, she can’t hear anything over the shrill sound in her ears, an aftereffect of the crash, maybe, or a sign of concussion. If she wants to be alive to get medical attention, she needs to get underground. Being out in the open is sure to get her killed one way or another.

But sitting upright takes everything out of her. She drags herself to a chunk of concrete to prop herself up against, trying to scrape up some energy to stand. The adrenaline in her blood that had gotten her out of the helicopter is fading, and now she’s spending energy fighting hard against everything in her brain telling her to just go back to sleep. She wants to rest. Her head is too heavy for her neck. Her hand comes away wet from her side, and the sight of red coating it just makes her even more disoriented.

Mako blinks hard against the blood running into her eye and tries to think.

Just as she’s considering trying to stand up, there’s a massive vibration through the ground, rippling underneath her, and Mako can only hope that that’s the kaiju falling down dead and not more kaiju showing up.

People begin to pour out onto the street, looking around, frantically beginning to search for loved ones, rushing to predetermined meeting spots to see their families again. That must mean that the kaiju is gone—that has to mean that someone’s going to come help her eventually.

Mako experimentally feels her shoulder, the one above the broken arm, and decides its dislocated, judging by the feeling of the socket out of place. She can’t feel anything yet, but the shock is going to wear off any minute, and once she’s no longer numb, moving is going to become even harder.

There’s a hand on her knee, the one that isn’t skinned. Mako jerks her head up to look at whoever it is, trying to hear what they’re saying over the ringing still filling her head.

“Can you walk?” the person mouths, eyes wide, voice intelligible in the noise. It’s a woman, probably in her late thirties, with eyebrows furrowed and a large scrape running up the side of her neck and face that looks like road rash.

Mako nods, but a sudden shrill pain in her head makes her wince. She tips her chin down to her chest and squeezes her eyes shut as the pain begins to seep in.

The woman puts a hand on Mako’s back, Mori can feel it warm through her ruined blazer. “Okay, never mind, I’ll get some help carrying you--” Her voice fades out of being audible and Mako strains to hear, her hearing only cutting back in in time for her to catch, “--take care of you.”

 

Mako wakes up again, and this time, she feels everything.

She struggles upright, blinking hard, her swollen eye protesting. There’s still dust on her tongue, and it can’t have been long since she was in the street, but that’s not where she is now. She’s on a cot, and on all sides she sees pale green shower curtains. She hears movement and talking and even groans of pain around her, and realizes she must be in a shelter.

It’s likely that the hospital was damaged in the attack, or even that it was already full of casualties by the time she was brought there. Either way, here she is, most likely unidentified, most likely with a long road to recovery in front of her.

Her arm is in a splint made of gauze and old magazines. Her shoulder has been pushed back into place, as far as she can tell, but her ribs are definitely still broken and they protest when she swings her legs over the side of the bed to stand up.

She’s lucky to be alive, she knows, but there isn’t time to wallow. She staggers to her feet, and lurches towards the curtains to figure out which one leads to an exit.

A hand touches her good elbow, and Mako startles, turning and putting her hand up to block her face, prepared for a fight. She only finds a nurse, stepping back from her in an attempt to look as non-threatening as possible. He doesn’t succeed. His blood-spattered scrubs don’t go unnoticed. “Ah, hey! Sorry to startle you,” he says, putting on a smile that he probably learned in nursing school. “Let’s sit back down so I can ask you a few questions, alright?”

Mako lowers her hand and takes a steadying breath as her tenuous grip on balance starts to weaken. “I need to call my husband.”

“You should be sitting down, you sustained a lot of blood loss and you have a severe concussion--”

“Thank you, but I need to call him,” Mako insists.

“We can do that after we answer some questions. It’s basic stuff, for the search and rescue teams and hospital data, okay?”

Mako concedes to sitting down on the edge of the bed, because her head is spinning and she may not be sure what year it is, but she’s not going to let go of what she needs to do. “I need to call him, he thinks I’m dead right now. And then I need to call my brother.”

“Just a few questions,” the nurse says, clearly determined and already picking up a clipboard from where it’s hanging on the end of the bed. “Can I have your full name?”

“Secretary-General Mako Mori,” she says, watching his face for a reaction. He doesn’t disappoint, his eyes darting to hers with dawning recognition. “I need to call Raleigh Becket and then Jake Pentecost. Do you understand?”

About two minutes later, there’s a cell phone in her hand. She doesn’t remember whose phone this is, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that Raleigh’s probably seen her helicopter crash on the news, and he’s probably freaking out without taking time to reach out and feel if she’s actually dead, because he takes news hard. She needs to get in touch with him before he spirals.

The phone rings, three times, and then Raleigh picks up with a quiet, “Hello?”

Mako, despite herself, smiles enough to crack her split lip, which starts to bleed again. “Raleigh.”

“Mako?” His entire tone is instantly changed, going up about an octave and filled with relief. “Holy shit, sweetheart, they told me--Jake called and said you _died_. Are you--”

She blinks, unsure why her eyes are full of tears. She can hear that Raleigh’s crying, too, most likely not for his first time today. “I’m alright. Well--” She looks up at the nurse, who’s simultaneously handing her a paper towel and gesturing in a _ehhhh_ kind of way, and amends, “I jumped out of a helicopter,” before pressing the towel to her mouth.

“You’re so--” Raleigh laughs, the sound watery. He must have had a pretty rough day before she called. She wishes she was there with him. “You’re amazing, Mako, I love you, I cannot believe...Wait, do I need to come get you? I can be there in an hour.”

“You don’t know where I am,” Mako says, and presses the back of her hand to her forehead, endeared and momentarily forgetting about her bleeding lip. He’s still talking, too fast for her tired brain to keep up. “Raleigh!” she says, a little bit louder than before, to cut off his concerned rambling. “I’m going to give the phone to someone who knows where I am. Drive safe.”

“Copy that,” Raleigh says. “I love you.”

 

Mako wakes up to someone gently touching her shoulder, and she blinks at them before pushing herself upright. It’s the nurse again, and he points to the end of the cot and says, “You have a visitor, General.”

Standing there is Raleigh, eyes rimmed red and chest heaving like he’d run the whole way to the shelter.

Mako holds out her arms to Raleigh, and the nurse takes the hint and leaves.

Two long strides later, Raleigh is finally in her arms. She doesn’t mind that he’s squeezing her ribs too tight, or that he kisses her cheek instead of her lips because her lip is bleeding. He’s crying again, salt soaking into her shoulder, and she just runs her hand over his hair and closes her eyes and lets herself be content for a moment.

“Have you told Jake?” Raleigh eventually asks, muffled by her shirt. He’s practically laying on top of her, trying to hug her while she reclines on the cot. Neither of them shift to get more comfortable. “He didn’t sound too good when I talked to him on the phone.”

“He didn’t pick up.” Jake, most likely, is very busy dealing with the aftermath of stopping the end of the world (as she assumes that’s what happened--everyone is still alive and not consumed by a chain of volcanic eruptions). It’s just cruel to let him believe that she’s dead for too much longer, but Mako realized she needed the moral support, so: “I waited until you got here to try again.”

“Aw,” Raleigh says, honored.  

“Don’t get a big head,” Mako says. “Can I use your phone?”

“Lost your super fancy government tablet, huh?”

Mako huffs a small laugh. “It wasn’t my first priority.”

“I love your priorities. You can use my phone anytime,” Raleigh says, and Mako can feel him smile.

Despite the fact that she loves being held by him, she eventually forces herself to speak up. “You’re squeezing me too tight,” she says, in the lightest tone she can muster.

Raleigh loosens his grip on her and he pulls back, concerned and ready to admonish her for not speaking up sooner, but she settles a hand on her arm and he relaxes a little.

Mako smiles, forgetting about her lip for the second time that day. Raleigh finds her a tissue for the resulting blood.

 

Mako’s not technically cleared to leave. What happens instead is that there’s a two-hour period of time when no nurse comes to check on her, so she takes a dose of painkillers and lets Raleigh help her up. He’s been pretty much glued to her side all day, keeping in physical contact with her as much as he can.

She dislikes immensely having to lean on him as she leaves, as she knows anyone who sees her is going to recognize her and know that she’s not in fighting shape, but Raleigh just bumps her hip with his, communicating effectively that he still thinks she looks like she could handle herself and it’s alright to accept help.

Mako hip-checks him back and suppresses a smile when he makes an offended noise.

The car ride is slow and difficult, with rubble blocking most of the major roads and people still crowding the streets. Mako refused the offer to call a chopper, and Raleigh was more than ready to agree with that decision.

In addition to the slow car ride and pain seeping back into her body, Mako is unable to reach Jake. She calls him about twenty-seven times. For half of those, the network doesn’t connect, as it’s overwhelmed with the calls of thousands of desperate people, and for the other half, Jake doesn’t pick up. Mako’s starting to get worried about him, but Raleigh is pointedly radiating calm through their drift connection and it helps. Enough for her to keep breathing, at least.

 

An hour and a half later, they’re in front of the compound. The woman at the gate, who looks rather run ragged, lights up when she recognizes Raleigh and Mako and buzzes them in immediately.

Mako’s painkillers are almost worn off as they pull into a parking spot, an especially heavy dull pain starting to radiate through her stomach (she’d found out from the nurse that she’d fallen onto a piece of rebar and gotten impaled, which was a little disturbing). Raleigh takes her hand to try and siphon off some of the pain. She resists, pulling it back through their connection to her own body, and he furrows his eyebrows.

“Let me take some of it,” he says, the first words that the inside of the car has heard the entire trip.

“You don’t have to hurt any more today,” Mako says.

Raleigh rolls his eyes, and even she realizes that she’s being overly obstinate. “You shouldn’t either,” he insists, and squeezes her hand.

She reluctantly lets some of her pain over to him, and they sit in quiet for a few more minutes before she nods and lets go of his hand and unbuckles her seatbelt. He does the same and gets out and runs around the car to get to her before she steps out.

Mako shakes her head fondly at Raleigh, and he smiles.

 

People get quiet as they go by, noticing Mako walking with her head high and Raleigh supporting her at her elbow. They’re quite a sight, with Mako presumed dead and Raleigh not having set foot in the facility for at least five years.

They’re to the doors of the control center when Mako hears someone shout her name, and she turns to see Tendo at a full sprint, and she hardly plants her feet before Tendo has run into her with the force of a steam engine train and all the air is knocked out of her. She stumbles back a few steps, and Tendo almost succeeds in pushing her over, but Raleigh catches both of them and the three of them stand in the hallway in a very awkward group huddle.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Tendo mumbles into her shoulder. Mako waves Raleigh away and places her hand on Tendo’s back. She knows that he needs this, that he’s probably dealt with too much loss in the last day (in the last fifteen years, actually), and prior to this, he would have given anything to hug any one of the pilots he’s lost.

Luckily, within a few seconds, Tendo notices the she’s wheezing from the pain of impact, and he pulls back, spewing at least five apologies in the span of ten seconds, and she just smiles a tight smile and massages her chest with one hand. “I understand,” she says firmly, cutting him off. “Is Jake here?”

“He’s in his room.” Tendo points over his shoulder. “Can I tell people you’re alive?”

“As long as no one else wants a hug,” Mori says. Tendo laughs and wipes his eyes with his sleeve, nodding over and over until Mori reminds him he can go, she’ll still be here later.

 

Mori knocks on the door, and for the first time, is nervous about seeing her brother.

She’s convinced Raleigh to let her do this on her own, after proving to him that she could stand up by herself, so it’s just her in the hallway. It feels empty and alien, after the wild couple of days she’s had.

“Maybe come back a little later, he’s sleeping,” someone is saying in a low tone as the door opens, and it’s Nate instead of Jake standing there. Mori balks just a little, noticeably enough that Nate says, “Oh, he’s here, sorry. I just--” Nate takes a breath. He’s fully clothed, at least, but that means Jake is too distraught to partake in his normal celebration habits, so maybe that isn’t a good sign.

“I just don’t--Holy shit, you’re alive!” Nate cuts himself off to say, finally processing that it’s _Mako_ there. He’s most likely just woken up from a nap.

“Yes,” Mako says flatly.

He doesn’t seem to be expecting anything more from her, explanation-wise. Nate just steps back a little, opening the door wider. “He’s--uh. You’d better just come in?”

The bedroom is dark, with the metal blinds pulled over the big window. The view only looks out on the main construction floor, anyway, so Mako doesn’t blame Jake for not wanting to stare at it all the time.

Jake is in bed, under the covers, presumably. Mako can’t see any part of him, but she figures it wouldn’t be anyone else. He seems to be curled up tight, facing a spot where the covers are drawn back, probably where Nate had just gotten up from.

“Someone’s here to see you,” Nate says. Jake grunts.

“Jake, it’s me.” Mako says. That gets him to sit up pretty quickly.

He pushes the covers down from his face, and she sees that his eyes are puffy and bloodshot, that there are still tears on his face, and she goes against all self-preservation instinct and holds her arms out for a hug. Jake scrambles off the bed and crosses to her, and his hug is warm and heavy because of the length of time he’s spent under the blanket, and her ribs scream at the pressure, and Mako tightens her hold on Jake and lets him take his time.

“You’re okay,” he says, tentative and confused and overwhelmed.

“Nice catch,” she says dryly, and pats his back. She listens to him laugh, and smiles. Her lip splits again.


End file.
